8mo wakes every 30/40 mins day and night!

[onetwofive]

Help me someone! My lovely DS2 is the happiest of babies but can't connect sleep cycles. Have been trying the Tracy Hogg approach, applied pick up/put down to naps and that definitely has helped to get him down in the first place. BUT it doesn't seem to make the blindest bit of difference whether he's fed to sleep or gone down in that fabled "awake but drowsy" state; he still wakes up 30/40 mins later. Occasionally an hour and a bit. With naps it's not breaking us too much as I can either pick him up to get him back to sleep or just make sure he has another couple of naps but at night time - omg. Put him down at 18:30/19:00, he'll just keep waking up all evening and then the night too. The problem is that it's partial awakenings so he won't settle back to sleep by himself, I have to pick him up, but atm he is instantly falling asleep on my shoulder. Then I have to try to get him down in his cot without waking him up which can take a Very Long Time. Atm I'm up and down all evening till I go to bed, then I'll pop in one or two more times, then normally at 11 something I give in and bring him in the bed with us as who could actually function going in every half an hour all night, every night? Unfortunately even in the bed he still tosses and turns and feeds a lot all night, so none of us are getting brilliant sleep. I just don't know what to do. If I try to settle him in his cot his crying just escalates.

Anyone resolved a similar situation? X

That’s great Lou. Onetwofive, I’ve found it quite easy to spot hunger as DD will cry much more loudly and persistently if hungry, and I’ll just feed her. Whereas there are times I’ve fed her just because I’ve been so tired and can’t be arsed doing the shushing in the middle of the night, and as soon as I put her on the boob I regret it as she’s immediately falling asleep and only using it as a sleep tool. Over a few nights there was a pattern of waking times so felt easier to judge real hunger. The first night of the cold was amazingly fine, again just up once, but last night was up every 2hrs and fed her loads, she was coughing a lot. Amazing though the dramatic difference between falling asleep on boob and in cot.

Tonight she fell asleep on boob and I couldn’t stop her, but she’s been asleep for over an hr which is an improvement on where we were before starting any of this. I still feel hopeful!!

We haven't been able to start yet as well e are in a bit of a situation where we have no cot! Should have one sorted for next week then will start! So glad to hear it's worked for you Lou, fingers crossed for us!!

My children are much older now but I did controlled CC at just over 7 months. D'S was waking every 45 minutes through the night but having nice long naps in the day, his sister was only waking once or twice at night (despite sharing a room with DS!) And was wide awake all day apart from one nap. That left no time for me to sleep.
I left him to cry for one minute, then two, etc up to ten. It only took a couple of nights for a noticeable improvement and we all felt so much better. I did it every time his sleep showed signs of regressing.
Doing it was awful at first, my health visitor said C C was for the desperate, but I really was desperate at that point.
Fingers crossed your little ones all sleep better soon.

Okay ladies! How is everyone? So the cot will be in situ tonight so the gentle training is starting... I have a few questions!
She usually feeds to sleep so I was thinking of doing the usual and then if she wakes when I put her down or when she wakes ten mins later 🙄 that I then start comforting her in her cot? Or should I be aiming to put her down awake from the off? I'm not gonna lie that feels pretty unachievable! 🙈
And do you pick up at all? I'm thinking I set a timer on my phone for a certain amount of time and if she's not settling I pick her up for a cuddle then put her down again before she's asleep and start again... or is that confusing?! What have others done?
Anyone doing this with older children too?? My pre schooler is likely to interrupt so will probably have to leave her in the cot at various junctures to deal with her... not sure what I can do about that as their dad can't consistently help with bedtime due to work...
Argh I'm scared it's all not gonna work!! 😱

I dont have any answers as I am going through this myself atm. My Dd feeds to sleep and there is no way on earth she would sleep by just putting her straight in her cot (hopefully one day). I tried the shhh pat technique for the first time last night when she woke up after sleeping for 30 minutes.It worked better than expected as she almost went to sleep but had to give up after 35 mins even though mentally I was ready to keep going I couldn't take the pain to my back anymore from leaning over into her cot.I picked her up a few times but that didn't help either. Good luck to everyone for tonight.

Tumtitum, I fed my DD as part of the bedtime routine and then put her down awake. It felt unachievable to me too but my DH helped the first night, have you got anyone who can help? It took us nearly an hour the first couple of nights and then it got better. We just kept reassuring her and if she got really upset I did pick her up and then once she was calm out her back down. I put my hand under her bottom and slightly rocked her while patting and shushing as she was used to rocking to sleep and that helped. Night wakings I fed as normal but if she stirred when being put in the cot we repeated the pat/shush routine. We started this about 6 weeks ago and now she settles very quickly and can resettle herself until she needs a feed. She's my first so I'm afraid I can't comment on having an older one to take into consideration. Good luck!

Thanks all. I need to suss this rocking them lying down technique! The cot transition has been delayed by another night due to house renovations, argh!!!

Can I join? I'm in the same bloody boat :/ LO is 8 moths atm AND teething AND has a cold AND is refusing to sleep- he actually resists sleep despite being exhausted- it's driving me mad. He'll wake up at 5:05 and from then until 6:10 will whimper wanting more sleep but struggle to self-soothe or be put to sleep. He'll then wake up and be miserable until I force a nap on him at 10am (when all the bloody baby groups begin). This'll last 35-40 mins max and he'll be up again. Another nap of the same length at 2pm and then bed at 6pm. That's when the real fun begins and I'm like a yo-yo in and out of the room. We co-sleep but I feel like I don't have a life anymore as I'm on edge and focussed on making sure he gets some rest. Please someone tell me this gets better? To the op saying they look like an 80 year old- I can empathise. I've aged so much since having the baby. I look a haggard mess 😭😭😭

Also, anyone else's baby cry because they need help turning sides? LO has always slept on his side and will stay there and wait for me to turn him. Is that normal???

First night of soothing in the cot... hating it! :( half an hour so far and she's in my arms for the third time having got really worked up. I don't know how long to hold her really so have been holding her until she stops doing the hiccupy breathing they do after they've been crying. If it takes much more than an hour I can't see myself continuing as I feel terrible :(

Hey how's everyone doing?? We're doing a bit better than my last post... I'm now feeding to sleep then putting her in her cot, when she usually wakes, then I lean over and cuddle her and stroke her cheek and back etc until she falls asleep. She's been sleeping anything from ten mins to one golden 90 min stretch. Annoyingly it's very random and tonight she won't sleep for longer than ten mins!! Crying is much less which is great, I'm just up and down up and down the stairs... am hoping if we continue as we are then she'll naturally start to sleep longer stretches...
Unfortunately now naps have completely gone to shit and I'm now no longer getting my golden two hour naps when I can get loads of stuff done, argh!!!

Tumtitum, swings and roundabouts eh?!

I've decided tonight is the night! I've said it out loud now (IRL as well!) so I'm committed. Sleep seemed to be improving but then worsened again. In & out all evening/night till I give up and bring him in. I'm just conflicted about which technique to go for - the "what worked for us" MN one, the settling in the cot that I did before or even controlled crying :| never thought I would but have seen a few posts extolling its virtues recently and am weighing up 3 nights of a LOT of crying & guilt but then it being cracked, vs several nights of let's face it, still a lot of crying but somewhat less guilt... oh motherhood!

Hello everyone.
We are two weeks into gentle sleep training. We are slowly slowly getting there but for every good ight there are plenty of crap ones and he is still waking at 5.30 on the good ones.
My anxiety about sleep is through the roof.
Why couldn't we have sleepers?

Hey! Currently sat here feeling very frustrated because tonight she just will not settle!!! 🤬
She fell out of my bed the other night so now I really want to get her sleeping in her cot for longer stretches but it just feels so unattainable ! :(
She is now my second bad sleeper, although in hindsight my first really wasn't that bad!! 😂

I feel your pain lovely.
I'm sorry. There is no way of dressing it up. Its shit.
My friend's 8 month old slept for 15 hours last night. I cant actually bring myself to reply to her.

I will join. I have a 9 month old and while in theory I'm totally happy to co-sleep he won't bloody stay in the co-sleeping cot and I had a panic the other night because he rolls/shuffles all over the place and I was forever finding him in my pillows/duvet which just doesn't feel safe. So in a fit of inspiration spurred on by my whatsapp group I moved the travel cot where the bedside cot usually goes so that I would no longer feel too lazy and/or cold to shuffle across the room and resettle him in there. Now I have no excuse. Can't go out easily this week as they are modernising our lift so I thought I'd stay in and have lots of shared naps.

Night one he woke hourly, I realised I couldn't stand from sitting in the ~3 inch gap between the bed and cot, I smacked his chin on my shoulder trying to get him out/almost dropped him the last inch or so in several times and cursed the whole idea. Reminded myself of the first night we attempted "bedtime" and resolved to give it 3 days.

We are now on night 6 and sometimes we're getting 1h20 between wake ups, which I call an improvement, but sometimes I'm giving up fairly early. If I wedge a pillow between the bed and cot it doesn't feel like he can fall out so that's my bed guard for now. But also if he did fall out he would be fine, our bed isn't that high. DS1 had fallen out twice (maybe 3 times) by this age

DS2 slept for no longer than 45 min at a time round the clock until he was 2.5. It was utter hell. He was bf and we co-slept, which in hindsight I think was part of the problem because we were keeping each other awake. Once weaned and in his own bed we never had another sleepless night.

The legacy of that (he's now 26) is that according to DH I sleep with one eye open. Indeed when DGS (14 months) comes to stay, I'm on my feet and going in to him if he so much as squeaks, and having him overnight makes me feel anxious .

Blimey kedgeree. How you are still alive is amazing!!

I have read part of thread, sorry if this has been suggested, but I made sure I bored mine. When they woke, I kept lights dim, yawned lots, no talking or noise, barely opened eyes, no eye contact or facial expressions, no TV or gadgets, did what they needed (BF/nappy/few pats on back), then straight back to my bed. Some nights they woke more, so more patting. I didn't rush in and didn't stay in room once I knew they were ok. It still took time for sleeping through, but I didn't have to get up for long and assumed a bit of comfort and no stimulus was a compromise to full on CC.

This was mine! At about 10 months it just started to sort itself and she's been a pretty consistent sleeper since then (apart from illness/ developmental blips etc).

I'm a go with the flow and trust it's a phase type mum and it's always just been a phase.....

Macro I couldn't agree more, babies tend to go through sleep issue phases at some point.

No sooner has one annoying phase gone and another fills its place and the last phase may not have been so bad.

Thankfully DC have lovely qualities so we all carry on. My midwife said babies are cute to make up for the hard work!

Mine just seems to get worse and worse :( she's gotten fairly used to being settled in her cot and it didn't take long, albeit she still woke frequently, but now it's taking 90 mins to settle her and then she'll sleep for all of ten mins 😭 she and toddler also woke up at 5:30 this morning so I'm already ready for bed myself but still have to clean up dinner etc so just need her to sleep for half a fucking hour!!

I'd like to join in too, although I feel a bit of a fraud because mine isn't quite as bad as some of these! He's 11 months, can self settle brilliantly, without crying, and goes down awake nearly every time, but it doesn't make a blind bit of difference, he's still up loads of times in the night! When teething it's every hour, otherwise it varies, usually I get 1, 2 or 3 hours at a time.

I get a glimmer of hope every so often where he has a run of a few good nights, and I get my hopes up, only for him to go back to being crap again straight after. It is so unpredictable I have no idea how many times I'm going to be up. I feel like I'm doing all the right things and just getting nowhere, and I'm feeling a bit despondent about the whole thing

Well true to form DS2 developed a cold just as I posted here so he's back in the bedside cot. I'll try again when he's feeling better. DH reckons naps are worth trying to focus on so I'm attempting to get him to do his afternoon one without me. Seems to be working well so far.

Much sympathy to all!
Darcey I know what you mean. I feed DS to sleep but if it's DH's turn he'll go down awake and pretty quickly - but no matter, he's still up again and again and again. I said I was going to try again properly on Monday and have it a stab but gave up again last night as was so shattered my issue is he doesn't properly wake up during the night, he's always half asleep. He cries, I pick him up, feed him, he's back asleep, I put him down, he stays asleep for 10 mins/an hour/2 hours, 3 if I'm lucky, and repeat. Not sure how I can "put him down awake" without throwing a bucket of water over him/turning on bright light/taking him out of room etc!